RISING star Florence Pugh’s brilliant year just got even better after landing one of her biggest screen roles to date.

The former St Edward’s School pupil has won the starring role in the BBC TV adaptation of John le Carré’s spy novel The Little Drummer Girl.

Miss Pugh, 21, will play Charlie, a young actress who is recruited by an Israeli spy chief, and then persuaded to become a double agent.

The BBC adaptation of le Carré’s The Night Manager last year, starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman, won rave reviews and boosted the profile of actress Elizabeth Debicki.

Miss Pugh, the daughter of Oxford-based restaurateur Clinton Pugh and wife Deborah, hit the headlines earlier this year when she played the lead role in the movie Lady Macbeth.

Proud father Mr Pugh would not comment directly on his daughter being cast in the role of Charlie.

But he added: “Florence is certainly getting noticed at the moment and we are delighted to see her doing so well - it’s exciting for the whole family.

“She has also been cast as the role of Cordelia in King Lear for a new BBC film adaptation and is filming with Sir Anthony Hopkins.”

Miss Pugh has followed sister Arabella Gibbins, 31, and brother Toby Sebastian into the limelight.

Arabella is an actress and a singer while Toby has appeared in American TV fantasy drama Game of Thrones.

And Florence’s 13-year-old sister Rafaela has appeared in Born of War, a 2014 film directed by Vicki Jewson.

Mr Pugh added: “Toby has just finished filming Trading Paint, in which he plays a racing driver alongside John Travolta.

“He is also appearing in The Music of Silence, with Antonio Banderas, a film about the life of opera singer Andrea Bocelli.”

Filming on six-part drama The Little Drummer Girl will begin early in 2018, with master film-maker Park Chan-wook directing.

John le Carre’s 1983 novel moved through London, Mykonos, Munich, Vienna, Bonn and Tel Aviv.

In The Little Drummer Girl, Charlie’s mission is to help track down Khalil, a shadowy Palestinian terrorist mastermind.

It is not known when the drama, set in the 1970s and 1980s, will be screened.